<p>also accepted to Caltech and Cornell Engineering (likely letter)...
pros/cons?</p>
<p>Obviously MIT or CT.</p>
<p>wow. You have a really easy choice, to be honest, you can’t go wrong. </p>
<p>But, from what I know, Caltech has the smallest program size, followed by Columbia, and then MIT, and then Cornell. </p>
<p>It really depends on what you want to do, if you are 100% positive that you want to pursue a technical career and feel 100% confident that you can become very good at it, then I think you should goto Caltech. </p>
<p>If you have some doubts, but lean mostly on the tech side, I would goto MIT. I think if finances are not a concern, MIT is the best bet, it’s a pretty well-rounded school, with a engineering program second to none.</p>
<p>In terms of prestige, I would say:</p>
<ol>
<li>MIT/Caltech</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
</ol>
<p>Columbia engineering’s recruiting is probably geared more towards finance in NYC. </p>
<p>I would goto MIT, unless there’s money issues.</p>
<p>Easy choice if money is not an issure. MIT. Best in the world!</p>
<p>Wow, fast reply! 
Thanks for the input :)</p>
<p>My concern about Caltech is that it’s a very small school, and I’m not sure I’ll like the social atmosphere. Also, between Caltech and MIT, I’m definately leaning towards MIT.</p>
<p>Columbia appeals to me because it’s in NYC, also I’m looking to get a more well-rounded education, not so heavy on the technical side.</p>
<p>HYPSM. Arguably the five best schools in the country. Guess what the M stands for? The Boston area is wonderful for a college student and you’ve got Harvard just down the street as well. A very exciting place to spend four years to be sure.</p>
<p>Might partly depend on goals.
Is your goal to be a scientific researcher/ Phd?
A practicing engineer?
Work on Wall Street?</p>
<p>How central to you is undergrad research?</p>
<p>What kind of social and physical environment do you prefer?</p>
<p>Which offers best opportunites for classes in other areas outside your major?</p>
<p>Extracurricular interests?</p>
<p>Do they all have as many courses available in areas you think you might be interested in?
(Some colleges don’t comprehensively cover the full breadth of engineering practice areas, I’d specifically check columbia vs. your interests, but the others too).</p>
<p>Do you want to, as a mandatory matter, take the hardest physics and math courses offered to undergrads in the united states? Or would you prefer the option of taking that, but can alternatively take the second hardest, at your election?</p>
<p>I agree with monydad. Personally, for a well rounded education I’d choose Columbia. Lots of kids change their mind about majors after entering college. Columbia or Cornell will leave you with more choices.</p>
<p>MIT also has choices, they have a top notch business program and I think their humanities are not shabby either. I vote MIT.</p>
<p>If that is case hmom5 the OP should go to Cornell. Cornell can give you a very well rounded education and is better in engineering than Columbia.</p>
<p>Cornell and Columbia have very different environments. That’s something that has to be taken into consideration since not everybody can succeed well in both a rural setting and in an urban setting.</p>
1 Like
<p>“I agree with monydad.”
?? well to be clear, I wasn’t making a recommendation, just raising some factors that OP might want to research and evaluate.</p>
<p>In that same spirit, OP should also look into the nature of the college and campus experience at each school.</p>
<p>The urban thing can be a two-way street. D2 found this out the hard way.
She just transferred from a school in an urban location to a school located upstate. She found that the lure of the city eviscerated the on-campus experience at her school, and decided that she really wanted a more traditional, campus-centered college experience for this stage of her life. Not what she had expected to happen, obviously, but there it is. YMMV and all that. But, based on this recent on-point example I would suggest this is something esle that you ought to consider.</p>
<p>As for the “well rounded” stuff, I wouldn’t take anybody’s word for it, you should look up how many credits of free electives you can take at each school. Some places like to market themselves as “well rounded education”- perhaps to offset obviously less abundant engineering offereings- but I don’t know for a fact that there is really much more freedom at the end of the day.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is the nature of the classes for these free electives. Do you want to be taking history classes with a bunch of other engineering majors, who are all taking it as non-major electives. Or taking that history course with a classful of smart, motivated liberal arts majors who are gunning for law school.</p>
<p>While Cornell may be better know for engineering, in my opinion Columbia is a much better school overall and there is no department that isn’t good. The difference in selectivity will mean a stronger peer group at Columbia even though it isn’t an engineering powerhouse. That’s why my vote would be for Columbia and their overall excellent undergrad program.</p>
<p>hmom, Columbia is not “much better” than Cornell. How on earth do you figure that? Can you please ellaborate? Since when does Columbia have a stronger peer group? Do you mean Columbia Engineers and Arts and Science majors vs Cornell Human Ecology and Agriculture majors? And since when does having a stronger peer group translate into a better education? Are you saying that Caltech is better than Harvard or that Washington University is better than Stanford and Columbia? You are way off on so many fronts.</p>
<p>Bunnygirl, academically, they Cornell and Columbia are roughly equal, with Cornell being slightly better in the Sciences, Engineering and a host of specialty programs (Architecture, Agriculture, ILR, Hotel Management etc…) and Columbia having the edge in the Social Sciences and Humanities. </p>
<p>However, Columbia and Cornell have very different environments. Cornell has a 2:1 undergrad to grad ratio, which means that the campus will have a strong undergraduate culture. That translates into more school spirit, more cheer and more partying. Columbia on the other hand has a 2:1 grad to undergrad ratio, which translates into a more serious and intense, graduate student-led culture. </p>
<p>If living in a large city is important to the OP, I recommend MIT. It is the best university she is considering…and not just for Engineering. MIT is also excellent in all the Sciences, Economics, Political Science, Psychology and Business. </p>
<p>Unless bunnygirl decides to change her major from Engineering to English Literature or Gender Studies (not likely), MIT would serve her better. Whether she wishes to become a practicing Engineer, a researcher on a PhD track or change careers and work as a consultant, Banker or whatever, MIT will open doors. </p>
<p>My recommendation for a second choice would be Cornell. Cornell is very well rounded and extremely strong in Engineering. In fact, it is the most well rounded university of the four on the Bunnygirl’s list.</p>
<p>would columbia grads be adequately prepared for practicing engineering or would it be too much theory?</p>
<p>If anyone cares,another social issue is, with Barnard factored in, the undergrad gender balance of Columbia undergrads tilts pronouncedly female, overall.</p>
<p>I have to imagine that Columbia undergrads who choose to practice engineering can adequately prepare themselves to do so, for those fields that it has comprehensive programs in at least. After all, IIRC about 1/3 of the grads of their FU school (I believe that’s the name) actually do become engineers. But most of the people who matriculate there dont want to be engineers, evidently. This may fit with the OPs plans as well, or it may not.</p>
<p>It all depends on what you’re after.</p>
<p>“Unless bunnygirl decides to change her major from Engineering to English Literature or Gender Studies (not likely)…”</p>
<p>depends on bunnygirl, but there are certainly people who started out studying science or engineering, but made their mark in literature. Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Farina come immediately to mind. I actually knew an engineering student who was taking extensive #s electives in literature courses. She stayed in, but I imagine if she’d decided to switch out this is exactly the path she would have taken.</p>
<p>Although I wouldn’t in a million years choose Columbia over MIT, the fact that you are considering the two very different schools together (as your two top choices I assume) makes me think that you are looking for a more well rounded school and by proxy more well rounded education-if something like that exists. So I vote for Columbia. They are both very wonderful schools, and even though MIT maybe “better” in engineering, honestly I doubt that stuff matters much for undergrad. What matters is that you learn a great deal, not that you learn from the number 1 ranked program for ugrad.</p>
<p>"What matters is that you learn a great deal, not that you learn from the number 1 ranked program for ugrad. "</p>
<p>But you can learn more where more is taught. You can be adequately to minimally prepared to pursue a given field, with minimal exposure to its full breadth and depth. Or you can be optimally prepared, with the greatest possible exposure to the various options associated with that field. Differences in breadth and depth of the program and its offerings can make a difference, in helping you steer and choose your path. There are some colleges where whole major practice areas of engineering are virtually absent.</p>
<p>I agree with those sentiments completely monydad, but I think it would be faulty to necessarily assign those traits to the programs with the highest ranking (not saying that you did). Very likely, they attained that ranking for the quality of the research they perform, not how much information is taught. Furthermore, just because a university’s program has a lot of $$ in it, it won’t necessarily be going to the undergrads. That being said, your last statement tends to go hand-in-hand with how highly ranked a program is so I will agree my statement was slightly hasty-but I still think that if OP were to lose out in her education at Columbia (which I honestly doubt) it would not be because MIT is ranked highly in engineering, it would be because MIT takes ugrad education more seriously.</p>